"From September 19 to 21, the King Manor Museum in Jamaica will host a public exhibition of an extraordinarily rare printed draft of the U.S. Constitution, on loan from Christie's. This isn't just any draft, either. It's the very first version to use the now-iconic words "We the People of the United States" instead of a laundry list of individual states. Even more, this copy belonged to Rufus King, a Founding Father, U.S. senator and abolitionist whose former home is now the very museum staging the show."
"The draft bears King's own handwritten edits-nerdy details that would eventually shape the final document ratified in 1787. Among them: swapping a clunky preposition in the preamble, adding "affirmation" for Quakers unwilling to swear oaths and lowering the bar for Congress to override a presidential veto from three-fourths to two-thirds. Not exactly casual margin notes."
"How rare are we talking? Of the 60 copies printed for the Constitutional Convention, only 12 are known to survive and nearly all of them are locked away in institutions like the Library of Congress or the National Archives. King's version is the first to surface at auction in more than 40 years and it will be sold at Christie's in January as part of its annual Americana sale. Until then, Queens gets bragging rights."
From September 19 to 21, King Manor Museum in Jamaica will exhibit a rare printed draft of the U.S. Constitution on loan from Christie's. The draft is the first version to use the preamble phrase "We the People of the United States" rather than a list of states and belonged to Rufus King, whose former home houses the museum. The draft contains King's handwritten edits including a preamble preposition swap, insertion of "affirmation" for Quakers, and lowering the congressional veto-override threshold from three-fourths to two-thirds. Of 60 original copies, only 12 survive and most are held in major institutions; King's copy will be offered at Christie's January Americana sale.
Read at Time Out New York
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